


Only The Guilty Run

by pine_storm_season



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, i came up with this idea literally four days ago so i'm half making it up as i go, i don't really know how to tag yet unfortunately so mostly this is just rambling oops, minecraft manhunt time!, okay im four chapters in and i have so much worldbuilding planned this story's getting out of hand.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pine_storm_season/pseuds/pine_storm_season
Summary: dream has absolutely no idea what's happening when a trio of hunters come after him. unfortunately, that doesn't stop them from chasing him.//i'm participating in a fandom event as a writer, so this story will be put on hold until that wip is finished, as i can only write so much every day lol
Comments: 25
Kudos: 158





	1. The Beginning Of The End

**Author's Note:**

> my first proper story with these characters! i have so much fun stuff planned and i can't wait to show you all >:)
> 
> anyway! 
> 
> warnings: a bit of fighting, although nothing too extreme, and i think that's it for this chapter!

Dream was lucky he was awake when the hunters came. A sharp spike of panic cut through him, and he stood, slipping through his house as silently as he could. He grabbed his flint and steel, eyeing the door anxious as he backed away from it. He stuffed some food in his bag, and slipped his mask over his face before ducking out the back door and grabbing his axe.

“Where’d he go?” one of them hissed, barely loud enough for Dream to hear. He took a step back, tightening his grip on the axe handle, calculating.

_The king’s hunters are here. They’re here for me. I haven’t done anything wrong, maybe it’s a misunderstanding, maybe I can go back in there and explain, say that they got me at a bad time and that I was just gonna go out and spend some time in the woods, say that I’ll help them find whoever they’re looking for, maybe I—_

One of them spotted him through a window.

“Get him!” he shrieked, pointing, drawing his sword with his other hand, and Dream turned and ran.

He heard shouts behind him as he ran, his mind flashing desperately through everything that he had done in the past week that might’ve lead to this and coming up blank. His bag thudded against his side as he ran, and the axe hung heavy in his hand, but Dream could only hope that they had more to carry, and didn't know these woods as well as he did.

A river, glinting in the moonlight ahead.

A grim smile spread across Dream's face, beneath the mask, and he changed his course slightly to where he knew the rocks that let him cross the river without setting foot in it. There were drowned in that river; if one of the hunters fell in, it would buy Dream at least a few extra minutes as they were forced to incapacitate all the nearby drowned before hunting him again.

A surprised shriek tore from his throat as a pair of giant spiders sprang from a tree and crashed into him, and Dream fell hard, skidding a few feet as one sank fangs into his left shoulder.

He twisted, slashing with the axe and cutting off several of one spider’s legs, then rolled up onto his feet again and swung out at the other, cutting it cleanly in half. After a few more swings, both spiders were dead, and Dream turned to the river as a yell rang through the trees.

He backed up a few steps, and with a running start, sprang across the rocks. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and in that moment, stepped on a slippery patch of moss he hadn’t seen and fell into the river.

Icy panic flooding through him as the cold water soaked his clothes, and he fought his way to the surface, paddling for the riverbank as quickly as he could. Maybe he could get out of the water before the drowned got to him, alerted by the splash of him falling into the river, maybe it would still slow the hunters down instead of him—

A freezing, slimy hand grabbed his ankle and Dream twisted, lashing out with the axe. Dark bluish blood filled the water, coming from the drowned he had hurt, but Dream didn't have time to be grossed out and just used the opportunity to scramble out of the water and keep running.

Disoriented by his brush with death and his panic, he didn't notice the ravine he was running to until he was nearly at the edge.

Fuck.

Dream spun, his back to the ravine, frantically scanning the dark forest in front of him for signs of the hunters. Nothing. But, Dream thought grimly, that likely wouldn't last too long.

He turned to face the ravine, calculating.

_I can't jump it here, is there a tree nearby that I can—nope, can't go over it, fuck, fuck, is there a way up? Maybe I could climb back—no that won't work either, they'll catch up, they'll shoot me down and bring me back and then I'll be done for and I don't even know what I've done—_

Dream forced himself to steady his breathing, away from the hyperventilating it had been edging towards, and scanned the far wall of the ravine.

_There._

A tangle of vines that he might just be able to scramble up.

Tucking his axe into the strap on his bag to free his second hand, he backed up a few steps, and ran toward the ravine. He smacked hard into the rough stone, hissing out a pained curse, but he clung firmly to the vines, and after a moment, he started using them to pull himself up and over.

The rattling of a skeleton startled him and he almost let go of the vines. Dream twisted to the side at the twang of an arrow being loosed, and tried to scramble up even faster, making it up to solid ground before the skeleton had another arrow ready to try to kill him with. He stumbled when he stood, but he kept running, panting now after the danger he had just been in.

If he had fallen into the ravine….

Dream didn't want to think about that.

//

“Where is he?” Bad asked, peering over Sapnap's shoulder at the compass. Glowing gently purple—a sure sign of magic, which unnerved Bad, despite knowing that they were backed by the king—the compass spun wildly, as though searching without a target. “It’s enchanted to hunt him, isn't it?”

“Sapnap, you dumbass, did you seriously forget to get anything of his for it to track him with?” George huffed.

“Language,” Bad muttered under his breath, but neither of them paid him any attention.

“Listen, we’re hunting a murderer here! I was more preoccupied with the fact that he was getting away!”

George sighed, shoving Sapnap’s shoulder lightly as he grabbed the compass from his hands.

‘”I'll go back and get something from his house,” George said, “you stay here and explain to Bad what's going on better.”

“Who made you in charge,” Sapnap muttered, but he didn't look angry as George jogged off into the woods. He plopped himself down on a log and gestured for Bad to follow, which he did hesitantly.

“How does the enchantment work?” Bad asked. “I thought you just…got it enchantment to hunt whatever criminal you were hunting and then it’d work.”

Sapnap snorted. “God, I _wish_ it was that easy. No, we need to put part of them in the compass.”

Perhaps noticing how Bad reflexively drew back, he hastily reworded it.

“Just, like, a bit of hair or something! The compass needs something to track him with, like dogs follow scents, else it won’t work,” Sapnap explained.

Bad nodded, trying to puzzle it out in his head.

“So it, it latches on to something from him and uses that to track his location and point you towards him?”

Sapnap nodded. “Yeah, that's pretty much exactly it. We usually catch people before they've gone too far, though, so often the compass is barely needed.”

“You two are good at it,” Bad said. It wasn’t quite intended as a compliment, more just an observation, but Sapnap grinned and jumped back up to his feet anyway. Bad followed him up.

“Thanks! We’ve been doing this for a while. And who knows, maybe next time you’ll join us too. It was certainly much easier fighting off all those drowned with an extra person.”

Bad thought back to his mother in the city.

“H—Uh, probably not, but maybe,” he said.

Sapnap nodded.

“We’ll be happy to have you,” he said, “if you do come with us on the next hunt. You're much nicer than that prick the king tried to have work with us that last time.”

“Language,” Bad muttered, and Sapnap heard it this time. He grinned mischievously, and Bad half expected the next words out of his mouth before he even said them.

“Fuck! Shit! Damn!” Sapnap exclaimed.

 _“Language!”_ Bad yelped, as Sapnap burst out laughing. “This isn't funny!”

“Who are you, my mother?” Sapnap laughed.

Bad huffed. “No, I just think, that you should mind your language a bit better!”

“Alright, alright,” Sapnap agreed, although the grin hadn’t completely left his face. Bad was not looking forward to the next time he got bored.

George pushed his way past the trees, compass in hand and now pointing firmly in one direction.

“George, watch this,” Sapnap started, but George huffed.

“You forget we’re on the hunt for a _murderer?_ Come on, Sapnap, we can joke after we've caught him!”

Sapnap sighed, but followed George off into the woods. After a moment, Bad followed them too.

//

The moon was low in the sky by the time Dream considered stopping. He’d left the forest he knew as well as the back of his hand, now in a pine forest that he'd rarely ventured into.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, Dream started to notice how cold and tired he was. His legs ached from running, and the spider bite on his shoulder throbbed, but with how exhausted he was he was sure he would be asleep in mere minutes.

Dream spotted a shallow scoop in the side of a steep hill, a few wavy ferns in front of it as a feeble cover. Normally, Dream would never consider that a safe place to sleep, especially not when it was still dark and monsters were still out.

But this situation was as far from normal as it could fucking get.

Dream glanced around as he headed to it, checking for monsters nearby. If a creeper found him, he was screwed, but then again, wasn’t he screwed anyway? The hunters wouldn't ever stop chasing him.

King Philza’s hunters didn't just _give up_ because a criminal was hard to catch. They wouldn't give Dream up either.

He curled up beneath the ferns, muttering curses under his breath. Oh, he hoped he would wake up safe in the morning.

Before he wondered if this was too much of a bad idea, his eyes slipped shut and Dream fell into a deep sleep.

//

“Wake up, sleepyheads,” Sapnap called, shoving George with his foot. “We have a murderer to catch.”

George made a sleepy grumbly sound, cracking open one eye. “Fuck you, Sapnap, I got woken in the middle of the night for my watch.”

“Yeah, yeah, like it's not a rotation,” Sapnap huffed.

“Language,” Bad mumbled, amusingly delayed, and Sapnap laughed.

“Up you get too, shadow boy, we’re hunting a criminal and he’s probably been up since the sun rose,” Sapnap said.

Neither of them moved, and Sapnap counted to five in his head.

“Do I have to get a bucket of water and dump it on your heads?” he asked, prodding George with his foot again. “Don't test me, I'll do it!”

Bad scrambled up as Sapnap burst out laughing. George sat up too, although he muttered a “fuck you” under his breath at Sapnap. Bad must not have heard it, as he didn't scold George for the curse, and the two exchanged an amused look before George stood and helped Sapnap pack up their stuff to go.

Bad grabbed his sword, shiny and new compared to Sapnap’s and George’s well-used ones, and accidentally nearly swung it into Sapnap, who jumped back with a yelp.

“Watch it with that thing!”

“Sorry!” Bad hastily apologized, carefully sheathing it and slinging their bag into his shoulder. “I can carry the food, by the way.”

“You’re lucky, Sap,” George said, elbowing him with a grin. “It was your turn this time.”

“Oh, shut up, you know I would’ve done it,” Sapnap said, but he was laughing.

“George, where'd you put the compass?” Bad called, digging through the bag on his shoulder.

“Oh, it’s with my stuff,” George said, walking over to get it. “I forgot to put it in the bag after I brought it back.”

“Give it to me!” Sapnap called, snatching it from George’s hands. He squinted at it, turning it back and forth to double-check the direction, then started off.

“Hey, wait up!” Bad yelped, scrambling back to his feet and hurrying after them, and George gave Sapnap a friendly punch to the shoulder for leaving without them.

Sapnap snorted, shoving George in retaliation, then ducking behind Bad, who giggled.

They walked in silence for a little bit, before Bad spoke up.

“Was this, like, a job before you two started doing it?” he asked. “I started hearing about you out of nowhere a few years ago, but I didn't exactly talk to anyone in charge. I wasn’t very curious.”

“Nope!” Sapnap said. “We went to the king and asked if we could do it, since we grew up outside of the city and knew the forest pretty well, and he said yes, so we did!”

“Much better than in the city,” George said, wrinkling his nose. “Why would—” he stopped abruptly as he noticed Bad staring at him.

He shrugged. “I like the city,” he said simply. “It's not too bad, and that's where my only family is, so I stay there.”

Sapnap wondered If it would be rude to ask what could possibly be good about the city.

“The _city,”_ George said, but he grinned at Bad in a way that made it clear he was joking.

“What's so bad about the city?” Bad protested.

“There are so many _people_ , and it's so _loud_ and _busy_ and _chaotic,”_ George exclaimed.

“We’ll stick to the forest, thanks,” Sapnap added.

Bad laughed. “Have you ever even _left_ Astrifer?”

“Yes!” Sapnap protested. “Me and George hunt down criminals, remember? Of course we've left!”

“How dare you say otherwise,” George deadpanned. “Have _you_ ever left the city?”

To their surprise, Bad went quiet and looked away. After a few moments of awkward silence, Sapnap decided to change the subject.

“How good are you with a sword?” he asked Bad.

“I’m… _okay_ at it,” Bad admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was never properly trained, but I've practiced with a sword so I'm not completely clueless or anything.”

“So have us fight the murderer, then,” George said. He snorted. “I’d rather you didn't get killed, even if I don't really know you.”

“How kind of you, George,” Sapnap joked, and got elbowed for the comment.

//

Dream woke to a wet, snuffling nose in his ear. He startled up, scaring the fox that had been bothering him, trying to ignore his racing heart as it bounded away.

“That scared me way too much,” he muttered, standing and grabbing his mask. He slipped it on, slinging the bag of food onto his shoulder and picking up his axe.

The sun had risen what looked like a few hours ago, and with a jolt Dream realized that was a few hours that he might not have. Who knows when the hunters set out after him, or what they'd do when they found him, but Dream knew it couldn't be good.

As he set out in the direction he had run in the night before, he wondered morbidly what they would do. Would they kill him? Bring him back to the king where'd he'd be locked up, interrogated, hurt? Or would they just toy with him until he was too tired to run, then leave him for dead?

Dream shuddered, gripping his axe tighter. He couldn't get found.

Dream's head jerked up as sunlight suddenly spilled into his face, and saw that the forest had abruptly shifted to grasslands, rolling as far as he could see to the horizon.

The visibility was a double-edged sword, he decided. He could see if they were approaching, but they could also see him. He shivered, hoping he was just imagining the feeling of being watched.

“You're just paranoid,” he told himself in a mutter, hoping that if he believed it hard enough it would become true. “Just paranoid, and there's no way they could've caught up yet.”

He didn't know if that was even true or not, but clutching his axe tighter, he hoped it was. They needed to sleep, too. Maybe they hadn’t even woken up yet. Maybe he was getting a head start. Maybe they had given up and gone back to the city.

Oh, did Dream ever wish that could be true.

Idly, he wondered who the other hunter with them was. He knew about Sapnap and George, of course; everyone did. King Philza’s hunters, who appeared out of nowhere three years ago and quickly became known.

But there had been someone else that he had barely seen among the dark trees, someone with pitch-black skin and pure white eyes and a shining, silver-grey sword.

Dream shivered. Whoever that was, they didn't seem human, and it terrified Dream to think about.

What did they think he _did?_ He'd just been doing his own thing in the forest outside the city, living like he always did with occasional trips inside the walls to get things he couldn't in the forest, and then all of a sudden the hunters were at his house and hunting him.

Dream was scared.

Oh, Dream was scared, walking along through the grasslands, exposed as could be and hunted by the king's hunters themselves.

But he forced it down, because if he thought about it too much he panicked, and panic would doom him.

He could still remember his father guiding his hand on the axe, striking down a spider tied to a fencepost.

_“Remember, Dream, if you’re ever in a situation where your life is in danger, do everything you can to avoid panic. It makes people stupid, and it'll get you killed.”_

He could still remember crying after killing it, too.

Dream snorted, tapping the side of the axe head against his leg as he walked. That had been the first monster he’d killed, but it certainly hadn’t been the last. In this world, you couldn't afford to be soft. If you couldn't bear to kill a monster, you were fucked.

Although, Dream supposed, he was fucked anyway.


	2. And So The Hunt Is On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: fighting of monsters, as in probably every chapter following, and nothing else that i can think of
> 
> (edit; also, apparently end notes are getting messed up and stacking instead of being one on each chapter, so i'm apparently gonna stop doing those ksjfjdhfjfj)

It was midday when Dream stopped walking and allowed himself to pause in the shade of one lone tree. His clothes had dried from falling in the river hours ago, and now the sun shone down on him brighter and hotter than he was used to in the forest.

Dream wished he’d had the foresight to bring any sort of way to carry water. His mouth felt dry and dusty from going now a day and a half without water, and when he sat down under the tree, he noticed himself shaking. He hated it.

After a few minutes, he made himself stand and keep walking. Maybe he’d come across a river or something soon.

Oh, Dream hoped so.

He wasn’t prepared for this, he knew. He had just been doing his own thing, off in the forest. He had just been _living_.

And now he might not have any life left to live, if he messed up badly enough and they caught him.

Dream was jolted out of his thoughts when he saw a village in the distance. A bright grin spread over his face beneath the mask, and suddenly it was all he could do not to bolt for it.

They would have supplies, surely they’d give him water, surely they'd help him—

Dream didn't let himself think about any other option.

They would help him. He needed them to help him.

And, to Dream’s surprise and delight, they did.

“How long have you been walking?” the villager who found him first asked.

“Since morning,” Dream tried to say, but his voice came out so raspy and weak he wasn’t sure if it was even audible.

“You should have brought water,” she scolded him gently. “Come on, we have a well.”

Dream followed her to the center of the village, where a large golden bell sat next to a cobblestone well. She drew up the water and handed him a glass bottle, which he gratefully filled and drank from, turning away to lift his mask.

Dream prayed she wouldn’t ask him about it, and surprisingly enough, although she seemed curious, she didn’t.

“What do you need?” she asked him.

“I don’t…I don't know,” Dream said quietly. He was jittery and anxious now that he had water, and he kept glancing around as though one of the hunters would suddenly appear behind a house.

He hadn’t asked for her name. He didn't want to make any sort of impression the hunters could track him with.

“I think once it gets a little cooler I'll keep going,” he said.

She nodded. “Alright. If you need anything else, you can come to me and I'll see what I can do.”

Dream nodded gratefully, one hand absentmindedly fidgeting with the tie on his bag. He needed to get out of here. He felt… _exposed_ , out in the grasslands, easily visible. If the hunters had any sort of ranged weapons, he was done for.

He ducked into a tall cobblestone structure, letting out a sigh of relief at the cool air that hit him. He settled himself on the steps at the back, where he had a clear line of sight to the door and out every window except one, his back to the wall as he tried to calm the anxiety that filled his body every time he thought about the hunters.

And then Dream noticed the potions.

A small wooden box with elegant, intricate writing that Dream couldn’t read sat in one corner, a warm golden-orange glow coming from inside it. A couple of brewing stands stood next to it, one with a few potions sitting there on it, shimmering slightly.

He was nearly certain they were swiftness potions, and oh, wouldn't _that_ be helpful in running from the hunters.

He shouldn’t steal them. He knew that.

And yet, as he slunk out of the village with his bag slightly fuller, he couldn't help but feel just a little bit more prepared.

//

The sun was high in the sky when the hunters found the edge of the forest. Grasslands stretched ahead of them as far as they could see, but the compass pointed that way too. Bad put the compass in his pocket, turning to face George and Sapnap.

“How far ahead _is_ he?” he asked, tugging back his hood in the heat of the sun.

“Hell if I know,” Sapnap said, absentmindedly kicking a rock.

“Language,” Bad huffed.

George snorted. _“Yeah,_ Sapnap, _language!”_

“Oh, be quiet, you muffin!” Bad yelped, laughing. He handed the compass to George, stepping back and shaking the pine needles out of his hair.

“Okay, so,” George started, taking a step forward without thinking, moving the compass side to side in a weak attempt to gauge how far away the man they were hunting was. “We’ll keep going, and once it starts getting dark we’ll set up camp.”

“Like he’ll still be out there by then,” Sapnap muttered with a wry grin, retying the hair out of his face.

“Yeah,” George agreed, beckoning them forward, “if we haven't caught him by then.”

//

They came to a village as the sun was starting to dip toward the horizon.

“We’re looking for a man with a smiley-face mask who came this way,” Bad started, preparing to explain more, but the face of the man they were talking to went dark.

“Oh yeah, the fuckin’ thief,” he spat. “He came by here, all right, and Iz gave him some water and then he fucking stole some of our potions!”

The anger in the man’s face kept Bad from commenting on his choice of words.

“A murderer _and_ a thief,” Sapnap snorted. “His list of crimes is ever-growing.”

“We’ll probably catch him tomorrow,” George added. “He’s already to get sloppy if he's stealing.”

“Panic makes you do dumb things,” Sapnap muttered, and he and George shared a look.

“Do you have any supplies that would help us?” Bad piped up. “If you don't mind sharing them, that is.”

“I can give you torches to fend off monsters, and I'll check my potion stores to see if I have any I can spare.”

Bad thanked him, smiling, while Sapnap and George got into a mock-fight over who knows what. By the time they stopped, Bad had three unlit torches and a flint and steel at his feet, and he was carefully tucking a strength potion into the bag.

The sun had set, but Sapnap and George didn't seem worried, so Bad wasn’t either. He had been tasked with setting up their camp as the other two fought off the few monsters who tried to come close. He could hear them yelling to each other—“George, watch your back, there's a skeleton!” “Sapnap, there's a spider _right there!”_ —but they seemed more than able to handle themselves, so Bad left them to it.

He shivered in the cold air, tugging his jacket around himself as he finished laying out their bedrolls and grabbed his sword.

“I’ll take first watch,” he volunteered.

Sapnap turned, a wild grin on his face and flushed from the cold night air and the fighting. “Nah, I got it. It’s my turn anyway, plus I’m probably not gonna sleep for a while.”

Bad nodded.

“How selfless of you,” George said, and Bad wasn’t quite sure if he was joking or not.

“How long does it usually take you to catch people?” he asked George, as they both wandered back into the light of their fire, watching Sapnap taunt a pair of creepers slinking closer.

“Usually about half a week, but the most we’ve ever been hunting someone is two weeks. He died to a creeper nest, though, so we didn't have to bring him back to the king.” George flashed him a grin. “The quickest we've ever caught someone was about an hour of hunting.”

“That's very fast,” Bad remarked.

“It is! We’re very good at our job. There's a reason King Philza granted us the position, after all.”

“Have you—” he hesitated, before asking, “have you met any of the princes?”

“We met Prince Techno once,” George told him. “This was before he stopped leaving, though, so we just ran into him returning. He had a bag full of stuff and was all bandaged up. I have no idea why the king let him go out for so long if he's gonna get himself so hurt.”

“From what I've heard, I'm not sure that he can _stop_ him,” Bad said, and they laughed. “Do you know what made him stop?”

“No, but it was the same time as his hair went white, so there was definitely something going on with him,” George said. “Very strange.”

Bad nodded. “He’s always been oddly feral for a prince.”

George snorted. “He really has. Sapnap says once as kids they ran into each other in the city, and he just said “blood for the blood god” and tried to stab him with a wooden sword.”

Bad burst out laughing. “Really? How old was he?”

“Sap was ten, and Techno was eleven.”

“Oh wow,” Bad said, and George laughed.

The conversation faded as they both started to get tired, and it wasn’t long after when they went to sleep, Sapnap keeping watch.

//

Although Dream hadn’t seen his family for months and it had never bothered him, staring up at the moon now, he couldn't help but feel very, very alone. His mask was laid on the ground next to him as he chewed on a strip of dried meat, his rapidly-dwindling supply of food still in his bag.

He’d set a branch on fire and stabbed it into the soft ground, but his free hand still rested on the handle of his axe, eyeing the wide expanse of water in front of him warily. Drowned could come out of nowhere, and despite the large amount he’d dispatched before, it had never been on this little sleep.

Dream shivered as a breeze blew off the water, wishing for the second night in two days that he had something warmer than his thin green sweater. He shifted further into the stand of oak trees he was sleeping by, hoping it would provide cover, but he was still cold and anxious and alert.

Dream was scared.

But if he faced it, he would freeze, and then he was doomed. So he avoided the thought, instead casting his thoughts back to the warmth of the city.

Even before he was on the run for a reason that he didn't know, he had been lonely. But now, all Dream wanted was safety and someone he could trust.

“Those are in short supply right now,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

He was exhausted, but he was too exposed to sleep. If he went to sleep now, he was screwed; any monster could find him, and if it was something particularly dangerous, he wouldn't even have the chance to wake up before he’d be dead.

He curled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms, before abruptly standing and slipping the mask back onto his face. He walked to the water’s edge, scooping some up in his palms that he let fall on his head. He shook his dripping hair out of his face, shivering in the cold. Not falling asleep any time soon, that was for sure.

Dream met the first zombie to find him with an axe to the chest and a sharp smile.

//

Tommy hissed his name and Tubbo woke with a yelp, muffled by Tommy’s hand over his mouth. After a moment to get his bearings, Tubbo sat up, pushing Tommy’s hand away.

“Why are you in my room?”

Tommy grinned crookedly, the moonlight casting sharp shadows on his face.

“Whaddya say we do a little—a little adventuring?”

Tubbo grinned. “What sort of adventuring are you talking about?”

“You know those hunters Dad has, George and Snapnap or whatever his name is? What if we _beat them to the person they’re hunting?”_

“I’m listening,” Tubbo said, getting up and pulling on his jacket.

Tommy was standing by the door, rocking back and forth on his heels impatiently. He had a bag on the floor by his feet, and he had his sword in its sheath on his hip, the slight glow of the enchanted blade barely escaping. Tubbo pulled on his boots, grabbing his sword.

“What's in that bag?” he asked.

Tommy picked it up, the grin still on his face. “Two bottles of water, some food that I stole from the kitchens, that blanket Techno would take with him back when he would go on his trips, a firestarter, and a few pearls that I stole from Wil.”

“Are we ready to go, then?” Tubbo asked him.

“Hell yeah,” Tommy said, slinking out into the halls with Tubbo right behind him. “All we gotta do is get one of those fancy enchanted compasses that points right to that bitch and we’re set!”

“Yeahh!” Tubbo cheered quietly, and Tommy couldn’t hold in a startled laugh at his enthusiasm.

“Alright, let’s go then,” Tommy muttered, grinning, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other grabbing Tubbo’s to pull him along.

Stealing a spare enchanted compass from the hunters was surprisingly easy; all they had to do was slink into the empty house and pick one up out of a chest. And it wasn’t long until they were walking through the forest in search of the man they were hunting, Tommy’s sword gleaming in the light of the torch Tubbo held.

Tommy had a feral grin on his face and spiderwebs in his hair from fighting off a trio of giant spiders, and Tubbo was anxiously glancing up at the trees in case any more were lying in wait.

“How far ahead d’you think he is?” Tubbo asked.

Tommy glanced over at the compass held tight in Tubbo’s hand.

“Probably no more than a day,” he reasoned, “we only heard Tech and Wil talking about it yesterday.”

“We might even get there first!” Tubbo said, grinning. He spun in a quick circle, Tommy ducking to avoid the wildly swinging torch nearly setting his hair alright, before switching to a gait somewhere between a bounce and a run.

Tommy sheathed his sword before hurrying after him, glancing into the dark around them in case any monsters tried to surprise them. The two boys’ excitement fed off of each other until they were nearly sprinting through the forest, wild grins on their faces, surprisingly nimble in the dark forest.

A day of travel ahead of them, Dream cut through a pair of skeletons with dark circles under his eyes and midnight moonlight shining down on his face; six hours behind him, a pair of hunters slept while a third kept watch against the monsters, stained sword in hand.


	3. A Brief Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for taking so long to get this out sksjdjfhdhdg i kept getting distracted but now it's here!
> 
> warnings; nothing, aside from fighting mobs (which will probably be in pretty much every chapter so i'll stop warning for it specifically, i don't remember if i said this last chapter lol)
> 
> also,, please ignore the one end note akdjdhdjfgdjd i left that on the first chapter and it's no longer accurate, ao3 just won't let me delete it

Dream woke with a start, the sun shining through the leaves onto his face. He hadn’t fallen asleep until near dawn, and he was _exhausted_.

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing at his aching shoulder, forcing himself to sit up.

He hadn’t expected being on the run would be so bone-numbingly exhausting.

“C’mon, up ya get,” Dream muttered, making himself stand and swing his bag up onto his shoulder. He picked up his axe, before beginning to walk, skirting the coastline and eyeing the water for drowned. Not that he thought any would be out in day, but monsters were unpredictable, and people had been lost because they stopped paying attention.

Dream didn’t plan to be one of them.

He had only been walking for a few minutes when he spotted an old, rotted shipwreck, and a grin split across his face beneath the mask despite himself. There might be stuff in there. There might be something that would help him.

He edged toward the water, watching the waves for drowned. They often lurked in old ships like this, and if Dream wasn’t careful, the chase could end right here, right now.

It didn’t look _too_ deep in the water, and Dream hesitated, calculating. He could swim down, open a chest, and maybe even glance through it before needing air. If he brought his axe, he would have a chance against the drowned, and the ship might have much-needed supplies that he could take.

The Dream before would never have taken such a risk. But after the hunters had come for him, there was a reckless, “what do I have to lose” quality to all his decisions.

If the hunters caught him he was fucked anyway, so why waste time being overly cautious?

Dream carefully put all his stuff down on the sand, taking off his boots to keep them dry. It was warm, even for late spring, and Dream was pretty sure he'd dry off in the sun.

After a few more moments of hesitation, Dream left his mask on the beach too. Gripping the handle of his axe tightly, he forced himself to wade into the cool water, out towards the shipwreck. The ground dropped off sharply beneath him, and Dream let himself sink underwater as he fastened his axe to the strap on his back. He needed both hands free to swim, and he wished he had thought to do that before he had swum out.

He kept his eyes cracked open, the saltwater stinging his eyes slightly, but he couldn’t afford to miss a sign of drowned. If one cornered him, he was dead.

Dream reached the shipwreck, hesitating at the jagged, rotting splinters around gaping holes in the sides. He paused for a moment before swimming for the surface, treading water and breathing as he planned. His eyes stung, but he shook his head, trying to ignore it. He needed what was in those cheats, there might be something that would help him run. There might be something that could make the difference between death and survival.

He needed it.

A gurgling growl was the only warning Dream got before the drowned was upon him, and he kicked out, letting himself sink as he pulled his axe free and readied himself to fight.

The drowned reached for him, sinking alongside him as it growled hungrily. Dream lashed out with the axe, staining the water dark as the drowned was cut apart in three hits.

His lungs were burning, and he swam for the surface again, forced to drop the axe in order to swim. He took great gulps of air when he made it to the surface, starting to tremble from the cold water and the adrenaline flooding through him.

Dream dove again, this time making it into the ship, prying open a chest with fingers starting to go numb. Inside lay scattered pieces of rusted metal, a couple of green gems, and a piece of gold. Dream grabbed the gold and gems, stuffing them in his pocket, before swimming to the surface again for desperately-needed air.

It took two more dives to open the second chest, but inside it held something that made it worthwhile. Amongst the piles of soggy papers, ruined maps, and water-stained, illegible books, lay a surprisingly good-condition one with a purplish shimmer.

_An enchanted book._

This was something that could help him greatly.

He swam for the surface with the book in hand, excitement rising in his chest. This could be something that would give him a fighting chance.

It wasn’t until his head reached the surface and he could breathe again that he realized that he had left his axe deep in the water, and that it would be nearly impossible to carry both that and the book to shore.

Dream looked at the book, calculating. He needed it.

But he also needed his axe.

He dove for the axe, dropping the book on the ocean floor as he fumbled to attach the axe to the strap on his back. It took a few dives, but he managed it, and swam to the surface with the book in hand once again, then back to the shore.

Dream made it out of the ocean, shivering, soaking wet, and more tired than he had been after a day of walking, but he had retrieved important things from the shipwreck. And he could keep going.

He was sure he could keep going.

He had to.

//

Tommy was woken by Tubbo dropping his shield on Tommy’s stomach, and granted, he had made Tubbo take the longer watch, but he was still pretty sure that that was _completely_ uncalled-for.

“Tubbo!” he yelped, shoving the shield off of himself and sitting up.

Tubbo giggled, grinning mischievously.

“You gave me second watch!”

“How does that explain dropping a shield on me?” Tommy yelped, shooting Tubbo an indignant look.

“How does it _not?”_

“Wha—” Tommy cut himself off, shaking his head and laughing. “I regret bringing you.”

“Too bad,” Tubbo said, grinning. “Besides, you’d be lost without me!”

“I would not!” Tommy cried, grabbing their stuff and shoving the compass into Tubbo’s hands.

Tubbo immediately started off into the forest, following the compass, Tommy scrambling to catch up.

“What do you think he's done?” Tubbo asked, after a few minutes. “Must be pretty important, if Dad’s hunters are after him.”

“Maybe he killed someone,” Tommy said. “Maybe we’re hunting a murderer.”

Tubbo burst out laughing. “Imagine that! And _Techno_ was supposed to be the adventurous kid!”

A startled cackle escaped Tommy. “Our title now, bitch! We’re more chaotic than Techno ever was!”

“To be fair, there was that time where he tried to keep a funny-colored creeper as a pet,” Tubbo pointed out. He grinned. “Remember that thing? It hissed every time Techno went near it, and Wil had to throw a curtain over it when it actually tried to explode!”

“You tried to pet it!” Tommy pointed out, still cackling.

“It looked fuzzy,” he pouted. “How’s it my fault that it wanted to kill me?”

 _“You tried to pet a creeper!_ How is that _not_ your fault?”

“Shut up, Tommy, you jumped off a goddamn tower in those faulty wings, you’ve made more than your fair share of bad decisions!”

“Dad said they were safe!”

 _“Dad never said they were safe,_ Tommy he literally said that they were experimental, why would you jump off a tower with them?”

“It looked fun! Anyway, you once wandered off and got lost for _four hours_ looking at bees, how the fuck is that much better?”

“Hey, at least I didn’t bring home an entire ‘nother kid!”

_“I was fucking five, Tubbo, and so were fucking you!”_

At this point both of them were nearly laughing too hard to walk or talk, and Tommy had to lean on a tree to keep from falling over, and the bag was laying in the dirt, practically forgotten as they tried to calm down. It was a good minute before either of them was back to normal.

“I don't think we're doing a very good job hunting him,” Tubbo remarked, staring down at the softly glowing compass bemusedly.

They weren’t, not really. But perhaps that was for the best.

Or, as Tommy snatched the compass from him and led them off into the forest, perhaps not.

//

“C’mon, up ya get, you muffinheads,” Bad called.

Sapnap burst out laughing. _“Muffinheads?”_ he spluttered, sitting up and brushing the hair out of his face.

“Don't make fun of me!” Bad pouted, although the effect was somewhat ruined when he giggled a few seconds later.

George snorted. “And why not? Two on one, Bad! We’d win any day!”

“Oh, hush,” Bad joked, tossing a bag at George, who failed to catch it and instead just got smacked in the shoulder.

“Ow!” George whined, setting the bag in his lap and rubbing at his shoulder dramatically.

“Sorry, sorry!” Bad hurried to apologize.

“Crybaby,” Sapnap snorted, elbowing George. “He's fine, don't worry.”

“What if I wasn’t fine, Sap, and it messed something up and I died and that's the last thing you said to me?”

“Mhm,” Sapnap snorted, lightly tapping George on the head as he passed and smirking at the startled yelp it got. “Totally reasonable scenario, George.”

“It’s not _impossible,”_ George pointed out, standing and springing forward to gently smack the back of Sapnap’s shoulder.

“It’s just a bag,” Sapnap pointed out, giving him an exaggerated skeptical look.

 _“Just a bag,”_ George mimicked.

They were both abruptly reminded of Bad’s existence at the sound of a small explosion, and both of them startled, looking over at a sheepish Bad sheathing his sword.

“Wasn’t quite fast enough,” he admitted ruefully.

Sapnap snorted. “City boy,” he teased, grinning, and Bad laughed, giving him a mock-annoyed look.

“Are we gonna go or what?” George called, their bag of food slung over his shoulder, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other gripping the softly glowing compass.

They followed him off, skirting around the darkened patch of missing ground, on the trail of the man they were hunting.

//

“Can you read it?” Dream asked again, leaning forward in his seat anxiously, the man across the table giving him a patient, mildly exasperated look.

“Yes, I can read it,” he answered, peering at the shimmery magenta symbols on the book’s cover. “It’s a sharpness enchantment, sharpness three to be precise.”

“Can you enchant that onto my axe? I can—I can pay you, I just—I need it to be done quick,” Dream stammered, glancing out the window as if he was going to see the hunters there looking in.

“I can, yes. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, but you’ll need to give me the axe and wait out here for me to enchant it.”

“Okay, good, thank you,” Dream said, fishing through his still slightly damp pockets for the coins. He grabbed three gold ones and held them out to the man. “Is this enough?”

“I was going to ask for a little less,” he said, one eyebrow raised in surprise, “but that works too.”

“I don't have much on me, and I need it to be done quick,” Dream said, trying and failing to suppress the rapid bouncing of left leg. He grabbed the axe from its place on his back, carefully handing it across the table to the man, who took it and the book and left the room.

Dream fidgeted with his sleeves, glancing anxiously out the windows, the few minutes he had to wait lasting an eternity. One of his hands drifted up to his face, automatically checking the mask was still secured, before he forced it down to rest on his bouncing leg.

A relieved breath escaped him when the man returned, with Dream’s axe now glowing a soft purple, tiny symbols etched into the base of the axe blade, the darkened, dulled book tossed carelessly on the table.

“Thank you,” Dream said again, taking his axe and securing it back in its strap. He backed out of the house, instantly feeling slightly calmer once he was outside, and put a hand on his now much fuller bag of supplies. A newly filled flask of water, more food, and a light blanket rolled into a tight cylinder at the bottom.

He ran through a mental checklist for a few seconds, before deciding he had enough stuff and leaving the village.

The hunt was beginning to wear heavily on him, anxiety making his hands tremble as he checked the straps of his mask. But with the newly enchanted axe, he hoped that if worst came to worst, he might have a chance.

He set off into the spruce forest ahead of him, fingers tapping on the side on his leg as he walked, unable to resist the urge to glance over his shoulder every few seconds.

//

Techno’s first response when he saw the note Tommy had hastily scrawled was simply to sigh.

“They just left, huh?” he checked.

“Gone,” Wilbur said, nodding, waving the note around a bit for emphasis. “Supposedly, they’ll be back before dark, but even if they aren’t, they've got their swords with them, so monsters won't get ‘em.”

“Have you told Phil?”

Wilbur shook his head.

“He's got a kingdom to run, he can't be worrying after those two gremlins all the time,” he pointed out, but Techno could read his anxiety in the way his fingers worried at the corners of the note.

“I think they'll be okay,” he said, in that steady way he had. “They’ve just gone to the city, right? Maybe they’ve cooked up some prank, or Tubbo wanted to go see that bee garden he likes, or Tommy wanted to do that thing he does where he pretends we don't exist for a few hours. They’re not in much danger there, Wil, I think they'll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Wilbur agreed reluctantly, before adding in a mutter, “some crown prince I am, if I can't even keep my own fuckin’ brothers out of trouble.”

“There’s no controlling Tommy and Tubbo,” Techno said, resting a soothing hand on his brother’s shoulder. “They do whatever they want, and then come running back to us to clean up their mess. Chances are, they’ll have pissed off some gang of city kids and be back before midday.”

Wilbur snorted. “Knowing Tommy, it won't even be an hour.”

Techno made a mildly amused sound. “I’d give him two before he comes running back, Tubbo in tow.”

Wilbur laughed, gently shoving at Techno. “You have too much faith in him. That boy is made of chaos, and Tubbo is just as bad.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Techno said, pushing one rusty-pink strand of hair out of his face. “There’s a reason Phil never let them go off like I did.”

Wilbur burst out laughing, setting down the note. “God, imagine the trouble they’d get into.” He pitched his voice slightly higher, imitating Tommy, when he spoke again; “Wilbur, Wilbur, help, I smacked some village’s golem and now I'm stuck on top of someone’s house!”

Techno let out a cackle at that. “First time I went out I did exactly that, Wil, or have you forgotten? It took me so long to get home because I had to wait ‘til it was distracted with monsters before I could come down.”

Wilbur snorted. “Sometimes I think I'm the only responsible one here.”

“No, you just lack your sense of adventure, _crown prince Wilbur Soot,”_ Techno said drily.

“Oh, shut up,” Wilbur huffed, but he wasn’t at all mad, and he wasn’t anxious about Tommy and Tubbo anymore.

//

“Hey, Bad,” Sapnap started, breaking the silence that had settled over them as they traveled. “What do you think about joining us on our next hunt, too?”

Something dark and slightly sad flickered over Bad’s face, but it was back to neutral fast enough that Sapnap wondered if he’d imagined it.

“Maybe,” Bad said, kicking at a rock on the ground as he walked. “I, uh….” He trailed off, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn't plan to come along, it was kind of a—kind of a sudden decision.”

“Oh?” Sapnap said, glancing ahead at George, who seemed lost in thought.

“Yeah. I didn’t plan to join, I—” he cut himself off.

Sapnap ran a hand through his hair, glancing up at the sunny sky, waiting for Bad to continue.

“I don’t think I'm going to finish that train of thought,” Bad finally said. “But maybe I'll join next time.” A grin splits his face, and if it’s a touch away from natural, Sapnap doesn't comment on it. “You two certainly seem to need the help.”

Sapnap laughed. “Yeah, yeah, like you didn’t get jumped by a skeleton back by those rocks earlier. More likely we’d be protecting you.”

“Heyyy,” Bad protested, mock-offended. “I can hold my own most of the time!”

“Oh, like George then,” Sapnap joked.

George, startled back into paying attention by hearing his name, turned around to look at them. “What?” he asked, shaking his head back and forth slightly.

Sapnap snorted. “Am I gonna have to carry you both this whole hunt?”

“Hey!” George exclaimed, reaching over and gently shoving Sapnap. He pressed the compass into Sapnap’s hands. “You take this then, see how easy it is to track him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sapnap laughed, turning the compass around in his hands as he took the lead. “Easy as hell, George, you’re just distractible.”

“Language!” Bad interjected, startling a laugh out of both of the others.

//

Dream was nearly asleep on his feet, between the exhaustion of the hunt and the lost sleep of the last few days. He kept slowing by accident, before jolting back to paying attention and hurrying on.

But the shade and cool dark of a shallow cave that he was resting in was too tempting; without even meaning to, Dream started to doze off.

And this time, he didn't catch himself in time to keep awake.


	4. A Cross-Dimensional Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost 4k words pog
> 
> warnings: none that i can think of

For all his talk about being the most important to the mission, Tommy didn’t notice they were being watched until Tubbo pointed it out.

“Hey, there's a person in that tree over there,” he remarked casually, lifting the hand not holding the compass to point.

It was just starting to get dusky; the sort of time where if you weren’t back home, you’d want to be hurrying there. Monsters tended to come out as shadows started to get long, and that time was decidedly here.

Tommy’s hand drifted to the hilt of his sword as he looked over, and yep, that dark shape was definitely a person perched up in the tree.

“Hello?” Tubbo called, before Tommy could tell him not to.

“Ah—Tubbo—What if he's got weapons?”

Tubbo turned to look at him again, grinning, lifting his sword slightly out of its sheath. “So do we, and there’s two of us!”

Tommy’s head tilted to the side slightly as he considered that, then he shrugged and followed Tubbo.

“Hello!” Tubbo called, head tilted up to stare up at the person in the tree. The light of the setting sun cast harsh shadows on half of their face, and the effect was rather unnerving, although Tommy would never admit it.

“I'm not here,” the person called down in a flat tone. “You didn't see me.”

“Well we _clearly_ did, so you can come down now,” Tommy said. “You're not very stealthy, you know.”

The person sighed, then dropped out of the tree like a cat, and as he landed, they both realized as one that it hadn’t just been the shadows on his face.

He sighed as they both instinctively stepped back, taking him in.

One half of his face was a pale, almost-white color, and then nearly evenly split down the middle, the other side was an off-black. His hair had similar coloring, and one of his eyes was bright green and the other dark red.

The boy lifted one hand to run his fingers through his hair tiredly, and Tommy noticed the bandages on his last two fingers.

“Are you done?” he asked them, sounding like this was not an uncommon occurrence.

“What—uh—” Tommy started, then cut himself off.

“Born like this, according to the grown-ups,” he said. “It’s somewhat of a long story, so unless you’d like to stay out here ‘til the monsters come for us, I’d recommend not asking more.”

“What happened to your hand?” Tubbo asked.

He lifted his hand, looking at the bandages like he’d momentarily forgotten they existed.

“Oh, this?” he asked, glancing around to check for monsters. “I was fighting off a few skeletons and sprained my finger, like, a week ago. It should be all the way healed in a few days, so it’s fine. It's fine.”

“Does that happen often?”

The boy snorted. “Me accidentally injuring myself, or fighting monsters?” He hesitated, before continuing, “…Both, actually.”

He tilted his head to the side slightly. “Wait, you say this like you _don’t_ usually have to fight monsters. Is your village one with a golem, then?”

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a glance.

“Not exactly,” Tommy said.

The boy looked intrigued, but stayed quiet, his hand drifting to the axe at his side.

“We should likely get out of here before the monsters come kill us all,” he said, quite reasonably. “Do you guys live nearby? ‘Cause if not, you can come to my village. I'm sure they wouldn’t mind letting you spend the night.”

Tubbo glanced down at the compass, then at Tommy.

“Yeah, I think that’ll work,” he said. “How far is it?”

“Not very,” the boy said. “Only a few minutes away, so if we hurry, we might not even have to fight anything.”

//

Dream woke to the sounds of two skeletons fighting.

For a minute, he didn't know where he was, taking in the dusky light pouring into the cave, hand drifting to the handle of his axe at the rattling of bones.

He stood, taking only a moment to stretch and fully wake up before he rounded the corner. The skeletons barely seemed to sense him, simply continuing to shoot each other, arrows splintering dry bones until the one on Dream’s left fell to the ground, defeated. The other skeleton swung around to aim at Dream, drawing another arrow back from its seemingly infinite supply, and he acted on pure instinct.

Dream ducked under the shot, axe swinging and splintering the skeleton’s bow arm. It took only two more swings before the monster collapsed, already beginning to turn to dust, and Dream hesitated before walking deeper into the cave.

The skeletons had come from somewhere, and if it was anything other than simply deeper in the cave, there might be things there that would help him.

He was in luck, it turned out. Or maybe not, depending how you saw it. The cobblestone walls of a spawner room jutted out of one of the sides of the cave, and a gaping hole let him see into the room. Dream peered into the room, calculating. There were only three chests in the room, and a nearly-living skeleton resting in the dark iron cage. It glowed with a yellowy-orange light that deeply unsettled Dream, but he only waited another moment before stepping into the room.

He swung his axe at the dark cage, ripping it apart. The new enchantment kept it sharp despite denting the metal of the cage, and the skeleton inside it was destroyed along with it.

Panting slightly, exhaustion rattling through his bones, Dream knelt to check the chests. The first he checked contained a few dark seeds, a few scraps of paper, a couple of bones, and a small black disc. The others contained mostly the same, although they didn’t hold the disc, one instead having a coil of rope that Dream took, the other just holding more of the seeds and a small bundle of bones.

He jammed a wooden plank laying on the floor into the wall of the spawner room in case he hadn’t managed to destroy it, before backtracking to the mouth of the cave where he had left his stuff.

He tucked the coil of rope into his bag, before swinging it up onto his shoulder, and leaving the cave, axe in hand.

Dream didn’t particularly want to travel at night, but his choices were either keep going, or stay there the entire night and let the hunters catch up. And if the hunters caught up, he was done for.

//

“—So have you seen him?” George finished, as Sapnap and Bad muttered over the compass a few steps back.

“Yeah, he came through here earlier today, wanted Maxwell to enchant his axe or something,” the man they were talking to said. “He headed off in that direction,” he continued, jerking a thumb behind himself.

“Okay, got it, thanks,” George said, then turned to face Bad and Sapnap as the man headed off towards the village edges.

“Did he come through here?” Bad asked.

“Earlier today!”

Sapnap grinned, and George recognized in his friend the same restless energy that caused him to rock back and forth on his heels.

“Let's go then,” he declared, taking the compass from Bad and setting out in the direction he led. “We might be able to catch him tonight, even, if we don't stop ‘til we find him.”

George grinned, the ferocious energy of the hunt flooding through him, and even Bad looked excited, hand on the hilt of his sword as he followed.

“Keep an eye out for monsters,” Bad pointed out, watching the dark landscape around them. The half-moon above them shone bright in the dark sky, but creepers were at home in the night, and their dusty grey-brown-green pelts blended well with the environment around them.

The three of them unconsciously picked up the pace, excitement buzzing through them. George and Sapnap shared a glance; if worst came to worst, they’d keep Bad away from the danger. They were experienced. He wasn’t.

Footprints in the muddy moss outside a cave only heightened their excitement.

“Bad,” George said, drawing his sword. “If he seems actually dangerous, let us handle him.”

Bad nodded, one hand tapping the pocket holding the compass, the other hand on the hilt of his sword. They were so close. The compass had been spinning back and forth for a while now.

They were so close.

Half-dusted skeletons lay inside the cave, and George grinned. They must be very close behind if the skeletons were still half together; usually it only took about half an hour for them to fully dissolve to dust.

Together, the three of them crept through the cave, excitement buzzing between them like sparks off a fire.

George stuck out a hand when they encountered a cobblestone wall jutting out of the side of the cave, a wooden plank jammed in the way.

Sapnap shot him a glance, and the two moved without speaking; Sapnap drew his sword, holding it in one hand as he gripped the plank with the other. George readied his sword, Bad hanging back behind them.

Sapnap threw the plank to the ground, and they were faced with a trio of skeletons in an empty room and nothing more.

“Fuck’s sake,” Sapnap muttered under his breath, and for once Bad didn't comment on his choice of words.

They each picked a skeleton to attack, and within a minute the room was clear once again. Bad grabbed the plank off the floor and bashed at the dark iron cage until it stopped glowing, while George and Sapnap checked the chests and found nothing of importance.

“Deeper into the cave, then?” Sapnap checked.

George nodded. “Let's go.”

//

Techno found Wilbur by one of the windows overlooking the city.

“They’re still not back,” he said. He tried to keep his voice steady, but Wilbur had never been one for suppressing his emotions.

“They’re not,” Techno agreed. “They didn't use the phrase, though, so Wil? We know they left of their own accord, at the very least.”

Wilbur nodded, worrying at a thread coming off his sleeve. “At least there’s that, but those two can get in trouble in an empty room.”

“That they can,” Techno said.

“If they're not back by tomorrow—”

“I'll go after them.”

Wilbur stopped midsentence, mouth hanging open for a few seconds.

“The curse—Techno—I'll come with you,” he said. Steely determination settled in his eyes as he said the last part, and Techno was suddenly very glad that he had had a lifetime to practice being even more stubborn than his brother.

“No, you gotta stay behind,” Techno told him. “You’re the crown prince, Wilbur, you’d be in much more danger than I would. Besides, you gotta help Phil settle things with the kingdom across the sea.”

Wilbur huffed, that fire flaring to life in his eyes. “You haven’t been beyond the city in months! Who’s to say you’d be safer than me, anyway? I can fucking take care of myself.”

“I know, Wilbur,” Techno said, placating. His mind flickered through the different options; what would make Wilbur back down?

“Dad can handle negotiations himself,” Wilbur added, voice still firm and sharp.

 _He’s scared for Tommy and Tubbo, so he's getting snappy, coupled with the middle child independence thing,_ Techno thought, _so that's what to defuse._

“Phil needs you to help,” Techno said, “plus it’ll present a better front if the crown prince helps with the negotiations.”

“Phil can handle himself—"

“I’ll get one of those enchanted compasses, to track them, and then I'll come back. It shouldn’t take more than a few days at most.”

Wilbur hesitated, fiery anger cooled to simply worried embers, before he nodded.

“If you get yourself hurt, I’m getting Dad to ground you for a month,” he declared sharply.

Techno nodded, a wry grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “I’d be concerned if you didn’t, to be perfectly honest.”

Wilbur snorted, before standing. “I’m going to check on the situation,” he said, then exited the room.

Techno stayed by the window, staring out at the lights of the city. With Wilbur gone, he could finally sort through the cacophony that lived in the back of his head, a dull sort of whispery shout.

“Quiet down,” he said to the empty room. The voices obeyed slightly, quieting down for a few seconds before starting up again.

Techno sighed, rubbing at his head.

“Between you and my brothers, I'm getting a headache,” he muttered.

He couldn’t pick out individual words or phrases from the chatter, but he sensed that at least some of the voices were sympathetic, the others just shouting indefinitely.

“Skies above,” he sighed. “Can you not be calm for a single minute?”

He knew the answer, of course, but he was still going to ask them that question. Sometimes it even made them slightly more subdued for a few minutes.

“I'm not going to go up to golems,” he said flatly. “I haven’t forgotten that part of the curse, you know. I’m not particularly interested in becoming the target of a piece of enchanted scrap metal.”

“Prince Techno?” came a voice. “Are you alright?”

“Just sorting out my head,” he mumbled, and heard the door close in response.

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth when he realized it wasn’t even a lie.

“I’ve gotta go interact with people now,” Techno said, “so be quieter, okay? You’re gonna give me a headache before it's even properly dark.”

He knew they wouldn't listen, but he was going to say it anyway.

//

Dream couldn’t believe his luck.

He’d stumbled across a ruined portal, and ideas were flickering through his head as he dug through the chest left abandoned at the base

Upon closer inspection, there was even kindling in the notch in the portal frame, and more than enough flint and steel in the chest to light it, along with a golden chestplate that shimmered with an enchantment. Dream grabbed the scraps of gold left there, too, a grin spreading across his face at the idea.

He could go to the fucking nether.

The hunters would never look for him there.

Dream set his things down into the ground, pulled off his thin green sweater despite the chill in the air, and after a minute or so of fumbling, put on the piece of armor. He grabbed his bag in one hand and his axe in the other, stepping closer to the dark obsidian frame.

It took three tries to set the kindling alight, but once it caught, the fire leapt up through the frame. Dream squinted in the face of the harsh orange glow, but then the purplish chips in the frame began to glow, and the fire twisted into a purple, shimmering portal.

The heat from the fire faded within a few seconds, and the obsidian frame of the portal was cool when he touched it. He only hesitated a moment before stepping inside; what did he have to lose, after all?

Dream reached one hand forward and touched the smooth surface, shivering at the feeling. It felt almost like a sheet of water, but it didn’t part beneath his fingers, simply making space for him in a way he didn't quite understand.

Making up his mind, he gripped the handle of his axe tighter and stepped into the portal. A purple wash covered the world, and his head spun for a moment, but then a wave of heat hit him.

He opened his eyes and stepped out of the portal to see a harsh red landscape, sloping sharply down into a pool of bubbling orange-gold lava. The distance faded into a dark red fog, and he shivered despite the heat, blinking a few times.

Dream had never been in the nether, and despite the hunt, despite the hurry he was in, his legs gave way beneath him and he half-fell into a sitting position on the rough red ground.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered, one hand tracing the warm crumbly rock beneath him.

It was another few moments before he could manage to stand again, and he scanned his surroundings, suddenly feeling very lost.

“Ohh this was a mistake,” he mumbled, pushing his mask to the side to rub at his eyes. “This was a mistake.”

Regardless, he picked a direction and set off; it was too late to correct his decision now, and with luck, the hunters wouldn’t even know he’d entered the nether until the next morning. So he would keep walking. He would keep going.

He was so, so tired.

//

“We wouldn’t have to fight anything, huh?” Tommy said pointedly, sheathing his sword after delivering the killing blow to a zombie.

“I said _maybe,”_ Ranboo said, tapping anxiously at the handle of his axe. _“Maybe_ if we hurry we wouldn't have to fight anything.”

‘He did say maybe,” Tubbo pointed out, and Tommy shot him a mock-offended look.

“Here, just over this hill,” Ranboo told them, leading them along.

A village rested in the dip between hills, tucked slightly into the spruce forest beside it. A staircase wound up one of the taller trees, and branched out into a high-up platform; Ranboo pointedly avoided looking up at the pair of people standing up there.

“Oh, it's smaller than I was—” Tubbo started, then cut himself off.

Ranboo snorted. “Eh, it's fine, we’ve only been here for sixteen years, unlike whatever city you two are from.”

“How did you…?” Tommy trailed off.

“Your swords aren’t iron, so you’re clearly from a place with resources, and you seemed surprised at the idea of having to watch out for monsters, so from some city,” he said.

Tubbo looked impressed, but Tommy elbowed him.

“Your village will be nice to us, won't it?”

“Yeah, I think so. You're kids, aren't you? They're not used to outsiders much, but they wouldn’t hurt a kid.”

“Hey!” Tommy yelped. “I am not a _kid,_ I'm nearly grown!”

Ranboo snorted. “It still applies, Tommy.”

“Ranboo, there you are!”

Ranboo turned, then sighed. “Oh, hi, Mom.”

“Who are these?”

“This is Tommy, and this is Tubbo. I found them out in the middle of nowhere and figured they'd be safer here than out there.”

“Hi, Ranboo’s mom,” Tommy said,.

“Hello,” she said, looking somewhat distracted. “Can you fight? It's getting dark and monsters will be out.”

“Uh….” Tubbo said.

“We can fight! Of course we can fight!” Tommy exclaimed.

“Right,” Ranboo said drily, ignoring the offended look Tommy shot him. “Come on, you two, it’s my night to help defend the village so I'm dragging you two into it.”

Tommy made an indignant sound, but allowed Ranboo to lead them both back up the hill and drew his sword to help fight.

//

“Dead end,” Sapnap muttered in annoyance.

“Where did he _go?”_ Bad asked the air, pulling out the compass to check. Then he froze. “…Uh, guys?”

George and Sapnap both looked over in alarm, hands darting to the hilts of their swords.

Bad helplessly held up the spinning compass; it was acting like before they set it to track someone, when it would spin wildly with no particular direction.

“Wh—what?” George spluttered, grabbing it from Bad’s hands and shaking it back and forth slightly.

“Where the _fuck_ did he go?” Sapnap exclaimed.

“Language!”

“Did the enchantment break?” George wondered, confusion clear on his face.

“Maybe he's somehow right above us? Or—the nether!” Bad blurted, realization striking him.

 _“He went to the nether?!”_ George burst out. A slightly impressed look flickered over his face. “Well _that’s_ certainly a first.”

“C’mon!” Sapnap called, and Bad and George followed him back out of the cave.

When they reached the surface again, it was full-on dark, and a skeleton’s arrow nearly took Bad’s head off the second he stepped out of the cave. He let out a startled yelp, and George lunged forward, sword flashing as he reduced the skeleton to a pile of bones in seconds.

“This is the way it was pointing before,” Sapnap said, pointing off into the forest.

And so they followed him, deflecting monsters’ attacks, for only a few minutes before the purple glow of a nether portal shone through the trees.

“Well,” Bad said, sword in hand. “I suppose we go through now?

He shivered at the feeling of the purple light washing over him, nearly dropping his sword, but it wasn’t until they stepped out of the portal and a wave of heat hit them that it sunk in what he’d just done.

They were in the nether.

Sapnap held up the compass, now pointing decidedly off in one direction. He met Bad’s eyes and grinned.

“The hunt is back on.”

//

It was several hours later when their shift ended, and Tubbo was more tired than he thought he'd be as the three of them headed back to the house Ranboo’s family lived in. He reached into his pocket to fiddle with the compass, pulling it out and tapping his fingers against the side, before abruptly stopping when he saw the needle spinning wildly in circles.

“Uh, Tommy?” he said. “The compass is being all fucky.”

Tommy and Ranboo both stopped walking and looked over.

“What the fuck?” Tommy exclaimed.

“Oh, yeah, they do that if whatever they’re tracking is in a different layer of the world,” Ranboo said casually.

“Wh—what?” Tommy stammered. “Where could he _be_ then?”

“Probably the nether,” Ranboo said. “It's the most likely place, anyway.”

“Does your village have a portal?” Tubbo asked.

“Yeah, we do. Are you gonna go through it right _now?”_

“Why not?” Tommy said, shrugging, an easy grin slipping onto his face.

Ranboo sighed. “I'll go through the portal with you, because I genuinely think you might just die instantly.”

“Hey!” Tubbo and Tommy yelped as one, and a small laugh escaped Ranboo as he led them toward a dark wooden building.

He opened the door with a flourish, a dramatic grin appearing on his face as he spoke. “Aaand here is the portal!”

Tubbo stepped forward, the purple glow drawing his gaze. The way it spun and swirled was mesmerizing, and Tommy had to gently shove his shoulder to get him to zone back in again.

“Ready?” Ranboo asked.

“I was _born_ ready,” Tommy responded, stepping into the portal. Tubbo and Ranboo followed close behind.

“Whoa,” Tubbo breathed, staring out at the barren red landscape past the iron bars peppering the walls.

“Here, take these,” Ranboo said, handing them each a pair of gold boots. They both put them on, still staring in slight awe at the nether.

The screech of a ghast tears them out of their wide-eyed wonder, and Ranboo stiffened.

“Ohh no, oh no, no no no,” Ranboo repeated, standing, pulling the other two back away from the door.

Tubbo wondered if he thought they’d walk straight out into the line of fire of the ghast. But as it turns out, that wasn't what he had to worry about.

Another fireball comes screeching towards them, passing through the iron bars and slamming into the base of the portal, and it shatters like glass.

Ranboo went still, and for the first time since they've met him, real fear showed on his face.

He turned and dug through the chests that line the room, muttering frantically under his breath, but as he straightened up at the last one, Tubbo couldn't help but feel an echo of his panic.

“So,” Ranboo said, a slight hysteric edge in his voice. “There's nothing to relight the portal, so. Uh. It seems I am stuck in the nether.”


	5. Into The Depths Of Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no idea how i got this out so fast but here ya go lmao
> 
> warnings: some panic, and i think that's it.
> 
> (also, i have a tumblr where i sometimes post stuff from my aus, @chaos-king, if you wanna come see that stuff or whatever)

Dream could barely keep his eyes open. He was so, so tired, and the heat was suffocating. He’d taken off his mask minutes, hours, days ago, and he clung to it with shaking fingers as he stumbled along.

The barren red wasteland had given way to a forest with willowy, twisting blue trees and scraggly turquoise grass beneath his feet. Vines twisted high up into the dusty, purple-fogged sky, and Dream had never felt so out of place, in a landscape so strange and twisted he could barely bear it.

A chirping, thrumming set of clicks sounded behind and above him, and he twisted to see what caused it, jerking his head down at the last second.

He knew to never meet an enderfolk’s eyes.

He rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, his whole body trembling with exhaustion. Fuck, he was tired. He’d been running for days. He needed to rest.

Dream tripped on an uneven piece of ground, the purplish-burgundy dirt skidding out from under his feet as he landed with a sharp cry. He went to stand back up, grabbing one of the vines that twisted up the cracked, blue-shimmering trunk of a tree.

He couldn’t stand.

Something akin to a ragged sob escaped him, and he gritted his teeth and pulled himself up with one of the vines.

Dream stumbled over to a wall of crumbly red rock, sinking to his knees as he dug at it with his trembling hands. He needed a place to sleep or he would pass out where he stood, and anything could find him, anything could kill him.

After a moment, he undid the ties holding his axe to the strap on his back, using it to dig out a small tunnel that twisted sharply into the rock. He was about to collapse from exhaustion by the time he finished, mumbling nonsensically under his breath as he tried to stay awake.

Dream crawled into the tunnel, curling into himself near the end. It wasn’t comfortable, or pleasant, but he was so tired he passed out nearly instantly.

//

“Why's it so _hot,”_ Sapnap complained as they walked.

“It's the nether, I don't think there's a single place here that _isn’t_ hot,” Bad said.

“Sapnap just liked to complain,” George said flatly, and Sapnap made an indignant noise.

“Hey! Like you're any better!”

George snorted, shaking his head.

A zombie piglin meandered into their path, and Bad yelped, stumbling back. The thing looked miserable, all ragged and empty-eyed, but Bad knew they were beyond any sort of feeling. He shuddered.

“Creepy little muffin,” he mumbled, giving the creature a wide berth.

Sapnap let out a startled giggle at Bad’s words, but he tried to stifle it as soon as it started.

“Yeah, they’re kinda unnatural,” he agreed.

“Guys!” George called. The landscape changed ahead of them, barren red rock giving way to twisting turquoise forests and purplish fog instead of deep red. “The compass is spinning a bit, I think we’re close!”

Sapnap and Bad shared a glance, and without saying a word, all three of them picked up the pace, hands on the hilts of their swords.

As they entered the blue forest, Bad shivered despite the heat. The forest was filled with enderfolk milling about, and regardless of the fact that Bad was certain he’d never seen one face-to-face before, something about them seemed incredibly familiar.

“I don't like this,” he muttered under his breath.

Sapnap put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but didn't speak.

George, ahead of them by a few paces, was laser-focused on the compass, following it as it twitched and swayed, pointing steadily at their prey. Bad kept looking around at the forest, less intent on the hunt than the other two were. He made sure to avoid meeting any enderfolks’ eyes as he stared around at the turquoise-blue forest, the warm golden-orange lights that grew out of the branches, the scraggly turquoise grass beneath their feet. Purplish-burgundy dirt scuffed under his feet, and he couldn't help but feel slight awe that an entire forest had managed to survive in such a harsh landscape.

George came to an abrupt stop suddenly, and Sapnap and Bad both walked into him.

He turned to face them, excitement clear on his face as he held up the compass.

“It’s pointing behind us,” he said in a low voice. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, free hand tapping at the hilt of his sword.

Sapnap grinned. “The hunt’s over, baby!”

“We found him?” Bad asked.

“Well, not quite yet, but the needle seems to be pointing to one solid point, so all we gotta do is follow it ‘til we find him.”

The three of them set off, following the needle of the purple-shimmering compass, excitement and anticipation buzzing around them like a tangible thing.

//

Dream didn't wake until he was dragged by rough hands out of the tunnel he made himself. He scrabbled for the mask on his face, checking it was still there, panic shocking through him as he jolted into high alert.

“Found you!” one of the hunters crowed.

Dream’s eyes darted around the three hunters standing in front of him, blocking the exits. Although their swords were out, they’re lowered; they didn't see him as an immediate threat. He doesn’t respond to the taunt, calculating, mind flicking through dozens of different plans and scenarios and possibilities.

The hunter with the headband—Dream would’ve known his name had he not been so panicked—prodded his leg with the side of his sword.

“Hey, are you even with us?”

Dream didn't answer, still figuring out a makeshift plan, held together by luck and hope. And then he struck.

He swung his axe off his back, using the dull side of the blade to sweep both hunters’ feet out from under them, then sprang to his own. He ducked under the third hunter’s grasp, hooking a foot behind his knee and knocking him to the ground.

And then Dream bolted, adrenaline flooding through him, ducking under trees and twisted vines as he put the axe back in the strap so he could run better.

He’d left all his stuff behind, bar the axe and the chestplate, but he was still free.

Dream could hear the hunters’ shouts behind him as he used a vine to scramble up one of the turquoise trees, digging the tips of his boots into the cracks in the trunk as he climbed.

“Up there!” One of them shouted.

“Get him!”

He scanned his surroundings, taking note of the hunters coming nearer, searching for ways out.

A steep hill, close to the edge of the forest; high in the trees as he was, Dream could get over it faster than they could. He might even be able to lose them long enough to collect his racing, scattered thoughts.

Somehow, he managed to leap through the trees, staying just barely ahead of the hunters. Thank fuck none of them had a bow, or he'd be screwed.

Dream landed hard on the side of the hill, the hard landing knocking the breath out of him for a few seconds. Then he scrambled up, struggling his way up the sheer hill as the dirt and grass gave way beneath his feet.

Panting, struggling to breathe through the heat and his exhaustion, he kept going until he reached the edge of the forest. In front of him was a sharp, spiky, dark grey landscape, patches of blackstone tucked among the tall basalt pillars. Dream coughed as ash blew into his face, suddenly very glad he was still wearing the mask.

The lavender-grey fog seemed oddly peaceful as Dream pulled himself up, scrambling and leaping between the pillars. Lava pockets bubbled and hissed, tucked against the bases of the pillars, little patches of burning death.

Clinging to a pillar with shaking hands, coughing as ash swirled around him, Dream wanted nothing more to go back to his little cabin outside the city. Where everything was peaceful and calm and he wasn’t running from the king’s hunters for who knows what, scared out of his mind and fighting to simply _survive_.

But he was too stubborn and too fierce and too scared to do that, and something in him wouldn't let him just give up.

So he kept going, after a minute to catch his breath, the hunters’ shouts lost to the vastness of the nether. He’d lost them. And he might not make it out of this hellscape alive, but for now he was still going, and he wasn’t fucking going to give up yet.

//

 _“Damn_ it,” Sapnap huffed, kicking at the ground in frustration. “He was _right there!”_

“Language,” Bad said, but Sapnap shot him a look and he quieted.

George lashed out with his sword in frustration, accidentally slashing one of the enderfolk hidden behind a tangle of vines. He yelped as the creature screeched in rage, stumbling back in startled panic.

Sapnap and Bad both came to his rescue, attacking it with their swords as George dodged its attacks. Soon, it was dead, and Sapnap crouched to inspect the creature’s body.

“Damaged pearl,” he says, straightening up. “Useless.”

“Aw, dangit,” Bad said. He took the compass from George’s shaking hands, waving it back and forth to get a weak read on the distance. “Should we keep going?”

Sapnap and George exchanged a glance, then Sapnap nodded. They both dropped back slightly, letting Bad take the lead. George’s hands were still shaking from the shock of how fast his life had been in danger.

Sapnap squeezed one of George’s hands, and he smiled weakly.

“Never seen one of those before,” he muttered, and Sapnap made a noise of acknowledgement.

George reached up to rub at his cheek, where one of the creature’s spiky hands had clipped him, leaving a reddish mark.

“You okay?”

“They hit hard, that's all,” he said. Then he flashed Sapnap a grin, pulling his sword slightly out of its sheath, before adding, “But we hit harder.”

“Hell yeah we do!” Sapnap crowed, and Bad turned to look at them, walking backwards.

“Language,” he called, and Sapnap and George both laughed.

“Fuck!” George called back, grinning mischievously.

 _“George!”_ Bad yelped. “Language!”

But he wasn’t mad, and the exchange had melted away the frustration over losing their quarry. Besides, they’d find him. It's not like he could go on much further, anyway, with how dangerous the nether was.

//

Ranboo tugged at his sleeves as the three of them trekked through the nether, anxiously glancing around. The cool air of a soul sand valley pressed in on them, the ground beneath them pulling at their feet as they walked.

Ranboo kept reaching for the handle of his axe, staying quiet as Tommy and Tubbo chattered on. The princes—okay, he didn’t know they were the princes, but he was pretty certain—seemed unaware of the danger, unconcerned, dark metal swords in their sheaths.

“Do you know what this guy’s done?” he asked them, eyeing the empty, rolling hills of dark sand. He shuddered at the thought of slipping in the wrong spot and going tumbling into the lava below.

“Not really, but Dad’s hu—”

Tubbo cut himself off when Tommy elbowed him sharply.

“The king’s hunters?” Ranboo said.

Tommy sighed, and Tubbo lowered his head in exaggerated shame.

“The king's hunters.”

Ranboo nodded. Yep, definitely the princes.

“…Anyway, they're after him, so he's gotta have done _something_ bad,” Tubbo continued. He grinned. “Maybe we're hunting a murderer or something! That’d be fun!”

Ranboo gave him a strange look.

“You two have an odd definition of _fun,”_ he said.

Tommy snorted. “Well, wouldn't it be funny if we beat them to him?”

“We won’t,” Ranboo said, but Tommy ignored him.

//

Wilbur stared out at the garden below his bedroom window. There was moonlight casting sharp shadows on the plants, and the few clouds drifting over the sky made interesting patterns of shadow.

It was sometime after midnight, he thought. Maybe two or three in the morning. The moon wasn’t visible from his room until around one or so.

Usually he wouldn’t be up at such a strange hour of the night (morning?). Usually.

“Why are you like this,” he mumbled flatly, leaning his cheek on his palm as he stared outside.

He wanted to go check Tommy or Tubbo’s room, to see if they’d returned yet. But if they hadn’t, the anxiety would keep him up the rest of the night, and he already had one thing keeping him awake.

His mind kept flickering through the more disturbing parts of the dream without his permission. The beginning had started off normal enough; just negotiations with Aeltharr, that was all. The only difference was that its king was in the room with them, and Tommy and Tubbo were there too. If the dream had ended there, he’d laugh it off as just a stress dream. “I've been helping Dad with negotiations so long it's appearing in my dreams,” he’d mutter, somewhere between amusement and irritation, and then he'd go back to sleep.

But the dream hadn’t ended there.

Wilbur shuddered as his mind drifted into the worse parts of the dream. A trap, laid in the room they were in; Tommy and Tubbo and Techno (when had Techno gotten there?) caught in the crossfire. His brothers, lying in a tangled, smoldering heap on the floor, his father motionless and limp in his throne.

He couldn’t remember what had happened directly after that, but somehow he’d ended up on a boat. Alone.

Another shudder ran through him, and he growled, running a hand through his hair.

He remembered in the dream he’d been so scared. And skies above, he fucking _hated_ it.

Wilbur stood and paced in a tight, anxious circle around his room, one of his hands tugging at his hair. He wanted to go back to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, images from the dream drifted unbidden to his mind.

Without meaning to, Wilbur found himself leaving the room and walking through the halls purposefully. He didn't know where he was going, just wandering, but he needed to move.

He could go to the library.

Abruptly, he switched directions, heading to the library. He could read through old history books; either it’d soothe his fears, or it’d bore him to sleep.

At this point, Wilbur didn't care which.

He pushed open the heavy oak-and-glass doors, the metal handles cold beneath his hands. He shivered, rubbing his hands together to warm them back up as the doors shut behind him with a dull thump.

He could see well in the library, despite the late hour. Moonlight streamed through windows high up on the wall, casting cool silver light across the tall bookshelves and dully gleaming wooden floor.

Wilbur found a lantern at one of the tables and lit it, before picking it up and carrying it with him over to the history section. It took him a good few minutes to find what he was looking for, but soon enough he was staring at an worn, tawny-covered book, with intricate deep burgundy script on the spine. _A History of Etarian Conflicts_ , it read.

He pulled it off the shelf with his free hand, carrying it tucked against his chest back to one of the tables. Mumbling under his breath, he skimmed through the table of contents, before finding a section labeled _The Red Wars._

Some part of his brain supplied the history he'd been taught without having to flip to that part; a series of wars between Etara and Aeltharr that kickstarted the tenuous relations they had even to this day. It had been drilled into his head, despite the fact that it happened several hundred years ago.

He kept skimming through it until he found a section labeled _Etarian-Aeltharran Skirmishes._ A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he flipped to that section. _There we go._

Wilbur skipped through the pages until he came to one of the most recent sections. _The Aeltharran Transfer of Power_. He knew without having to look that the book was referring to that period of time twenty years ago, when communications had closed for seven months and opened again with a new king.

 _The hooded king,_ people called him, although none of Wilbur’s family ever did in negotiations. Whispers were that he wasn’t a good king. Or, rather; perhaps a good king, but not a good man.

Wilbur buried himself in the stiff, dry words of the history book. Maybe if he studied what had been going on for the past years, then he would be able to help with negotiations better.

//

Dream didn't register the piglins until he was right next to them, immediately springing back in surprise. There were four of them, but as Dream watched, a fifth, smaller one slunk out from behind the others, clinging tightly to a loaded crossbow.

“Hi,” Dream said to the piglins.

The one closest to him snorted, tossing their head inside a shimmering gold helmet. They held their crossbow loosely by their side, watching him with dark, curious eyes.

Dream pulled out one of the pieces of gold he’d gotten from the shipwreck, which was somehow still in his pocket even after how far he’d traveled. He held it out to the piglin, hoping they would understand he was trying to trade with them.

They tilted their head, before turning to another piglin and rumbling something at her. She handed them a sling of hoglin hide, four dark turquoise enderpearls nestled inside it. They turned back to Dream, holding out the sling of pearls, and he grinned behind the mask.

He gave them the gold, taking the sling of pearls and tying it on the strap his axe was attached to. He pulled out the last two pieces of gold, holding them out to the piglin.

The piglin made a thrumming noise, lightly tapping their crossbow against their leg as they considered. Then they reached into a pouch, pulling out a flint and steel and a small, shimmering orange bottle.

Dream could hardly believe his luck, taking the fire resistance potion and the flint and steel from the piglin and giving them the last two pieces of gold. He backed away, hands fidgeting excitedly with the sling of pearls tied to the leather strap holding his axe, before hurrying off in that direction.

He had _so much more_ of a chance now, with four pearls and a fire res potion to get him out of danger.

As he kept walking through the barren red hills, skirting around pits of lava scattered randomly around, he couldn’t help but feel safe, despite the danger.

Dream grinned. He'd like to see the hunters catch him now, when he had four pearls and a potion that let him swim in lava unharmed.

//

Tubbo sat at the entrance to the little cave his friend and brother were asleep in, netherite sword in his lap as he stared out at the blue-fogged landscape. He shivered, the soft murmurs the soul sand made distinctly unnerving despite the fact he knew he wasn't in danger from the dusty brown sand.

He tapped the side of the blade, the dark grey metal smooth and soothing beneath his fingers. Ranboo had said this was the only sort of place in the nether that wasn’t unbearably hot, and as Tubbo stared out at the face-like patterns in the sand, he could believe it.

The rattle of a skeleton moving made him stand, and Tubbo gripped his sword as he crept out into the open to face it. It was facing away from him, towards the sea of lava, and Tubbo slunk towards it as quietly as he could.

It went down in two quick slashes, and Tubbo grinned in satisfaction at the fact that it hadn’t even had the chance to fully draw back an arrow before it was just a pile of shattered bones and a broken bow.

He wandered back to the cave, boredom begging him to wander off but his resolve to protect the others keeping him there.

Tubbo raked his fingers through the smooth, dark brown dirt next to him, drawing patterns in it. A smile spread across his face when he doodled a little bee in the dirt, giving it a moth and a dragonfly as friends.

Drawing simple little things in the dirt was the only thing that kept boredom at bay as he kept watch.

He was supposed to wake Ranboo when he was starting to fall asleep; Ranboo had spent much more time than him or Tommy in places with no sun, and had a much better internal clock.

Tubbo didn't know how long it had been when his eyes started to drift close, but at soon as he realized, he stood and walked deeper into the cave.

“Hey, Ranboo,” he whispered. A second later, he grabbed Ranboo’s shoulders and gently shook him.

“Ah!” Ranboo yelped, startling awake. Beside them, Tommy shifted and mumbled something in his sleep, and they both winced.

“Your watch,” Tubbo whispered.

Ranboo nodded, and Tubbo curled up in the spot his friend had been in, watching the boy walk out of sight. It was almost no time at all before he fell asleep.


	6. Desperate Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, there is an unintentional cliffhanger where it appears that one of them may have died. this is purely because of timeline reasons; it doesn't really make sense to put another part of that character's pov in this chapter, but since this cliffhanger is unintentional, i'm giving you all a heads-up kdjdhdjfjfjd
> 
> warnings: other than that, nothing that i can think of

Dream coughed, his throat dry and scratchy. He’d been walking for what felt like hours now, up and down the barren crumbling hills of dark red rock, without water in the heat.

He paused, allowing himself to sit long enough to uncap the potion bottle with shaking hands. He allowed himself one sip of the shimmering orange liquid, coughing at the sharp minty taste, before he capped it up again and tucked it in the sling of enderpearls.

 _Fuck_ , this really was hell.

He stood, stumbling slightly as he fought to keep his balance, determined to keep going until he physically couldn’t.

His head was spinning, and he let out a hissed string of curses as he tried to keep himself steady despite the dizziness.

“This was a mistake,” he whispered, unable to properly talk anymore. His throat hurt.

And still, he forced himself to keep going.

//

Techno knew without having to check that his brothers had not returned. The voices had been screaming at him since he woke, shouting at him to go save them, chanting their names over and over again.

Techno had left before the sun had even properly risen, softly-shimmering netherite sword in one hand, enchanted compass in the other. He was uneasy being so close to magic, literally _holding_ a piece of metal and redstone he had watched be enchanted, but he kept reminding himself it was just tracking magic. Nothing like the magic that powered iron golems, nothing like pillager magic, nothing like any sort of magic he’d been on the receiving end of.

The only problem was that the spinning compass meant he was directly relying on the voices to guide him, and they weren’t exactly _clear_ in their shouts.

_Nether, nether, they’re in the nether, cold cold cold, lava danger danger save them Tubbo Tommy Tubbo Tommy save them save them save them_

Techno groaned, a headache already forming behind his eyes.

“A direction would be nice,” he grumbled, standing just outside the city walls and staring uselessly at the spinning compass.

Some cacophony, chattering useless shouting and bickering among themselves, then it resolved into a chant of just one word.

_North north north they’re north go north go north save them save them Techno go north_

Techno glanced at the sky, orienting himself before setting off north.

“Haven’t done this in a while, hm?” he muttered to the voices.

They quieted, chittering in confusion, before demanding to know what he meant.

_Explain Techno explain explain don’t remember not this before do not know do not know Techno explain_

“Exploring,” he said simply, mouth quirking to the side in a slight smile at their confusion. “Been a while, y’know?”

_Only remember one trip back Techno Techno explain do not understand do not remember we do not know find Tommy find Tubbo never been lost before_

He cut down an unseeing giant spider with two quick swings, and the questions briefly dissolved into cheers and demands for blood.

Techno rubbed at his forehead, sighing.

//

Dream stumbled, a loose rock skidding away beneath his feet, and his knees gave way beneath him. Dream coughed as he hit the ground, shuddering as he tried to stand and found he didn't have the strength to.

He choked out a weak raspy sob, pleading for help from anyone, anything, something to keep him alive in this hellscape.

He would even be grateful to see the hunters right now.

But he didn't see them coming, and in the nether, people were few and far between.

Dream shuddered, lying sprawled on the warm red rock without the strength to get up. His hands shook as he tried to maneuver the potion to his lips, trying to use it like water to give him the energy to stand, but it slipped from his trembling grasp and shattered on the ground.

He coughed and shivered as the coolness of the potion washed over him, vaporized the moment it hit the ground, clinging to his clothes and his skin.

He was fireproof for the next few minutes. Not that it mattered.

His breath caught in a rattling wheeze in his throat, and he rubbed at it with a trembling hand. Everything hurt, in a strained, lightly-burning way. Dream didn't know how to handle it. He whimpered, slipping a hand beneath his cheek to keep his face off the dry, dusty ground.

Without meaning to, his eyes slipped closed.

//

Phil found his son asleep in the library, head resting on an old history book as the sunlight peeked through the windows. Usually Wilbur was awake by now, but the fact he was in the library asleep painted a picture of a restless night spent researching.

He hesitated, debating whether to wake him or not, before shaking his head and leaving.

He hadn’t seen any of his sons in the last two days, consumed by negotiations and papers and stilted letters sent back and forth across the sea. Things were still peaceful, but Phil was fairly sure that the Aeltharran king would do something soon that Phil would be forced to push back against.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he wandered the halls of his home. Usually Tommy and Tubbo were awake by now, causing chaos of some sort. Why, then, was it so quiet, so peaceful?

Perhaps they were simply still asleep.

But as Phil went to check their rooms, anxiety flickering through him, he suddenly doubted that way the case.

They were not, as it turned out, asleep in their beds. Phil ran his hands through his hair, debating whether to wake Wilbur or Techno to ask them if they knew where Tommy and Tubbo had gone. With luck, they’d just gone to the city to mess around for a while. They were still kids, after all.

Techno was gone too.

“Wilbur,” he said, gently shaking his son awake. “Wilbur, do you know where your brothers are?”

Wilbur made a sleepy, mumbly noise and weakly flung a hand out as if to push Phil away.

“C’mon, Wil, you gotta wake up, your brothers are gone.”

“Mmfff,” Wilbur complained, blinking and staring up at Phil blearily. “Leave m’ ‘lone.”

“Wilbur, wake up.”

“What _is_ it,” Wilbur mumbled, sitting up in his chair as he fully woke up and wincing at the stiffness in his muscles.

“Techno, Tommy, and Tubbo all are gone, and I don't know where they went. Do you know?”

“Mm…Tommy and Tubbo were gone two mornings ago, and Techno was gonna go find them if they weren’t back today, so that’s where they’ve gone. They’re safe, as much as I know, Tommy and Tubbo left a note and they didn’t use the phrase.”

Phil groaned, wondering how he could have _missed_ this.

“I—I’ll send people to find them, that shouldn't be hard, they can't have gotten too far,” Phil said, pacing around the table Wilbur was sitting at.

Wilbur stood, stretching, the lack of anxiety in his eyes only frustrating Phil more.

“We need our people here,” he said calmly. “If Aeltharr decides to repeat history, we need to be ready. Techno can handle himself, and Tommy and Tubbo have each other. None of them are helpless, Dad. Phil. They can handle themselves.”

“Worrying after them is my _job,”_ Phil grumbled, still pacing.

“I know. But being a king is also your job.”

And Phil couldn’t argue, as much as he wanted to.

//

Tommy was full of energy from the moment his eyes opened. Springing to his feet (and nearly overbalancing in his enthusiasm), he was ready to go before Tubbo had even properly awoken.

Ranboo was watching him with a slightly wary gaze, fidgeting with his sleeves as Tommy paced in circles inside their little cave. Tubbo stretched, sitting up and yawning tiredly.

“Is it really time to go yet?” he mumbled.

“Yes!” Tommy exclaimed. “Let’s _go_ , you two are taking fucking _forever_ and I’m _bored.”_

Ranboo snorted. “Yes, it is time to go.”

“Alright!” Tubbo said, a small grin spreading across his face as he stood and grabbed his things. “Let's go!”

 _“Fuck_ yeah!” Tommy cried, grinning, drawing his sword and swinging it around wildly in his excitement.

Ranboo squeaked, jumping back.

“Watch where you’re swinging that!” he yelped.

Tubbo giggled, watching Tommy sheath his sword with a mildly embarrassed look.

Tommy grabbed the compass, purposeful and determined as he studied it.

“He’s that way,” Tommy declared, before accidentally walking straight into the wall.

Ranboo and Tubbo burst out laughing as Tommy stumbled back, disgruntled.

“You saw nothing,” he said, before leading the way out of the cave.

//

Sapnap picked apart pieces of the turquoise vine in his hands, absentmindedly turning it to little strings of plant as he walked. The heat was getting to all of them, and they were quiet, just saving energy for walking.

They didn't have enough water.

Sapnap knew this, and so he’d given George some of his water. Bad had refused after seeing him give some to George, and guilt had flashed over George’s face then, but Sapnap refused to take any of George’s water in return.

With luck, they’d be out of the nether soon, and then they wouldn't have to worry about water.

“This is the longest hunt we’ve ever been on, holy fuck,” Sapnap muttered.

“Language,” Bad said quietly, grinning as he leaned out of the way of Sapnap’s attempt to elbow him in the ribs.

“First in the nether, too,” George added. He was holding the compass still, smoothing his fingers over the markings carved into the side for the tracking enchantment. There was a small bruise on his cheek from where the enderfolk had clipped him the day before (was it the day before? Sapnap didn't know. Time felt strange in the nether.) and despite his claim that it didn't bother him, Sapnap had noticed George touching it a few times.

Sapnap fished a tidbit of food out of the bag and put it in his mouth, trying to keep his mouth from drying up in the heat of the nether.

“God, this place is a nightmare,” George muttered under his breath.

“I'll be glad when we get out of here and never have to come back again,” Sapnap added.

There was a sharp, frustrated edge in his voice that he didn't mean to put there, and he winced as Bad gave him a concerned look.

“I'm fine, it's just way too hot,” he said, and Bad nodded.

Despite the fact that they all had slept the last few hours, Sapnap was exhausted. The heat drained his energy and made his legs feel wooden.

He hated the nether.

//

_This way this way right way Techno Techno find them Tommy Tubbo find them nether this way keep going nether Techno find them save them Tommy Tubbo Tommy Tubbo find them find them_

Techno ignored the voices, heading steadily north. He’d been walking for half the day now, and although the travel was not new to him, it had been months since he’d done it last.

The voices hadn’t said anything about his brothers’ fate, nor how Wilbur and Phil had been faring back at home, but he knew if something went wrong he would know immediately. The time Tubbo had fallen out of a window and broken his arm, Techno had known even before someone had come to inform him that his brother had injured himself. Techno had no doubt that the voices would tell him if something went wrong.

But at the same time, he couldn’t help but worry.

A creeper drew him out of his thoughts, slinking through the tall grass towards him. Its dark eyes were fixed firmly on his gleaming sword, and it hissed warningly as Techno lunged for it.

The creeper bared its teeth, clicking the sharp bits in the pouch in its throat back and forth. Techno could see sparks flying up in its mouth, and slashed his sword forward to try to kill it before the sparks could reach the dark powder in its belly and explode.

He left the creature lying there to dissolve into the grasses like things of its kind do, gritting his teeth at the pounding cacophony in the back of his head. The voices had replaced their incessant chattering with cries for blood, and not for the first time Techno thought that this was the worst part of the curse.

They never fucking _shut up._

He went to run a hand through his hair, wincing as it caught on the top of the braid and pulled. He’d forgotten that was still there.

Techno stared up at the clear blue sky, shielding his eyes against the sun. A bit after midday, then. He still had plenty of time before night fell and monsters would come trying to kill him.

//

Wilbur gritted his teeth, staring down at the letter sitting quietly on his desk. It was a fucking trap. Of course it was a trap. The king was trying to get Wilbur to agree to something, and then hold it against them when his father didn’t agree to the same.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “He just doesn't give up, does he?”

He knew negotiations were typically a labyrinth of carefully constructed promises and omissions, but _skies_ was it exhausting.

Sometimes Wilbur dreaded the day he became king.

Etara’s policy, when faced with conflict, tended to be to remain neutral. They didn’t interfere when another few kingdoms had a clash of opinions unless they were directly called on for aid. They didn’t take part in other kingdoms’ internal conflicts or rebellions.

Remembering the aftermath of the last one—not that Wilbur could remember that far back, but Phil had occasionally talked about it—he wondered if they should have. The typically peaceful Aeltharran king and queen had been overthrown, and they, along with their one-year-old son, had been killed by magic.

Wilbur had never been on the receiving end of harmful magic, not like Techno had, but still; the idea of such magic in another kingdom’s hands made him uneasy. He knew how people worked. He knew that the only thing stopping their deaths by magic, if the Aeltharran king decided he wanted their kingdom too, was the fact that the Etarian people wouldn’t simply lie down and accept it.

Occasionally, he had the thought that he was too young to be worrying about things like this. But then again, he was the crown prince. And anyway, if he didn’t shoulder some of the burden, his father would take it all and be crushed under the stress.

//

“What’s your village like?” Tubbo asked, tapping his fingers along the side of the compass as he walked.

Ranboo couldn't help but envy the safety the boy clearly felt, his sword sheathed at his side despite the danger of the landscape around them.

“I dunno, pretty normal?” he said instead, glancing around at the red-fogged lava lake. The path they were walking was much too narrow for Ranboo’s liking, and even though he knew they probably wouldn’t fall in, he was still on edge. “It was just, y’know, _home_. I never really thought about it too much.”

“Why’s your face like that?” Tubbo asked. After he finished the question, he winced, most likely mentally playing back his blunt words.

Ranboo snorted, giving Tubbo a smile to show him that he hadn't been offended. That was a much nicer way of asking than most of the wanderers that passed by had, anyway, and even if it hadn’t been, it was hard to be mad at Tubbo.

“Long story,” Ranboo said, not quite willing to get into the details of it with someone who was still practically a stranger. “The short version is that it's because of…” He trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase it. “Because of the circumstances of my birth. There were eight other village kids like that, too, so it wasn’t that strange to us.”

“Oh, wow,” Tubbo said, looking strangely fascinated. “That's really cool.”

Ranboo laughed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Just kinda life for us, but yeah, I suppose so.”

A yell from Tommy ahead of them made them both startle, worry flickering through Ranboo as he and Tubbo both hurried over to him.

“What is this little bastard?” Tommy exclaimed, pointing at a small reddish creature that was wading its way through the lava. It blinked up at him with big curious eyes, waddling out of the lava and beginning to shiver on the dark reddish rock.

“Oh, that’s a strider,” Ranboo said. “Our village has some back by the portal, but a different direction than we went. They’re very useful for travelling across lava lakes, although only a few of us ever actually used them for that.”

“It’s adorable,” Tubbo said, as the same time as Tommy proclaimed its ugliness. Ranboo stifled a laugh as they both shot each other an incredulous look.

The strider simply yawned, and Tommy stumbled back as he realized the size of its mouth.

“Can we keep it?” Tubbo asked, reaching out and stroking the little thing’s head. It blinked up at him, nudging his hand with its head as though asking for food of some sort.

“No, we can't keep it,” Ranboo said tiredly. “It's a baby, it’s probably got family nearby. Besides, from the way it’s come right up to us, I’d bet someone’s got a portal nearby and is using this herd for transport.”

“Aw…” Tubbo complained, giving the strider one last pat on the head. It made a _fwrrri_ ng sound at him before trotting back into the lava, beginning to swim away from them.

“Are we going to keep going, or…” Ranboo trailed off as Tommy and Tubbo both sprang up, immediately hurrying off through the nether. If they hadn’t been on a natural bridge between lava lakes, Ranboo would’ve worried that he’d lose them.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope that was sufficiently intriguing :D i have quite a bit more for these poor characters to go through, but for now, it's kinda the calm before the storm. we'll see how long that lasts.


End file.
